iSetu . gork’si 
Bruntiennesis! 

Bue . to . EebeEton 


“©r-  Norris,  Chief  ^Medical  Examiner, 
Attacks  Wrong  Source  of  'Drunkenness; 
Figures  Prove  that  Drunkenness  Decreased 
When  Prohibition  Was  Enforced  .... 


“If  Dr.  Charles  Norris,  chief  medical 
examiner  for  New  York  City,  were  to  as. 
sume  the  same  attitude  toward  small  pox, 
and  rabies,  that  he  assumes  toward  alco- 
holism, he  would  be  asked  to  resign  over 
night,”  said  S.  E.  Nicholson,  Associate 
Superintendent  of  the  Anti-Saloon  League 
of  New  York. 

“In  the  face  of  an  epidemic  of  small 
pox,  rabies  or  any  contagion,”  continued 
Mr.  Nicholson,  “Dr.  Norris  would  make 
every  endeavor  to  enlist  the  co-operation 
of  the  medical  fraternity  and  the  enforce- 
ment authorities  in  the  form  of  personal 
action,  education,  preventive  measures 
and  enforcement  efforts  to  reduce  and  to 
stamp  out  the  plague. 

Prohibition  Reduced  Drunkenness 
/ 

“In  the  face  of  increasing  alcoholism, 
all  he  has  to  offer  is  a complaint  about 
conditions,  a strongly  implied  conden^na- 
tion  of  the  prohibition  law  and  an  equally 
implied  endorsement  of  the  movement  for 
its  repeal.  His  own  figures  are  a denial 
of  the  implication  that  the  removal  of 
prohibition  will  effect  a reduction  in  alco- 
holic deaths.  For  the  eight  years — 1910 
to  1917 — the  average  annual  deaths  in 
New  York  city  from  acute  and  chronic 
alcoholism  was  619.  This  was  the  period 
of  license  which  Dr.  Norris  endorses,  and 
of  the  supposedly  pure  liquors  which  are 
said  to  be  no  longer  in  evidence. 

“Then  come  the  years  1918,  1919,  1920, 
and  1921,  which  are  war  time  and  Vol- 
stead years,  when  alcoholic  deaths  fell  to 
252,  176,  93  and  119  respectively.  These 


were  the  years,  and  especially  those  of 
1920  and  1921,  which  mark  the  best  de- 
gree of  observance  and  enforcement 
which  New  York  has  yet  experienced. 
These  two  years  of  1920  and  1921  reveal 
in  no  unmistakable  terms  what  prohibi- 
tion can  and  will  do.  The  record  justifies 
ail  that  the  friends  of  prohilition  have 
ever  claimed  for  it.  That  alcoholic  deaths 
have  increased  during  the  past  four  years 
is  not  due  to  prohibition  but  to  open  re- 
bellion against  prohibition.  Is  Dr.  Norris 
so  credulous  as  to  believe  that  the  repeal 
of  prohibition  would  have  reduced  the 
record  of  alcoholic  deaths  since  1922?  If 
so,  why  the  heavy  toll  in  deaths  prior  to 
1917? 

Present  Drunkenness  Result  of  Rebel- 
lion Against  Law 

“The  unmistakable  fact  is  that  the  in- 
crease is  wholly  due  to  the  come-back  of 
liquor,  and  not  to  prohibition,  and  this 
is  attributable  wholly  to  the  organized -re- 
bellion against  prohibition,  which  cen- 
ters here  in  this  great  city. 

“The  standard  of  prohibition  is  the  rec. 
ords  of  1920  and  1921.  Of  this  period  Bird 
S.  Coler,  Commissioner  of  Charities,  said: 

‘The  alcoholic  wards  in  the  Department 
of  Public  Charities  and  Bellevue  and  Al- 
lied hospitals  are  doing  practically  noth- 
ing. We  are  closing  most  of  the  floors' 
of  the  municipal  lodging  house.  For  the 
past  few  weeks  we  have  had  more  em- 
ployes than  patrons.’ 

“Mr.  Coler  even  discussed  seriously 
the  probability  of  a reduced  appropriation 
for  his  department,  saying  that  they  had 
only  from  twenty  to  thirty  nightly  lodg- 
ers ‘in  contrast  to  the  overcrowded  condi- 
tions of  former  times.’  Mr.  Coler  is  quot- 
ed in  the  Evening  Post  of  Mar.  18,  1920, 
after  two  months  of  Volstead  Prohibition, 
to  the  effect  that  ‘suffering,  dependency 
and  certain  types  of  sickness  have  been 
already  appreciably  lessened  in  New  York 
City  as  a result  of  prohibition.’ 

“Even  the  then  president  of  the  City 
Board  of  Aldermen,  Hon.  F.  H.  LaGuar- 
dia,  now  Congressman,  was  so  impressed 
that  he  said,  ‘the  day  of  charity  is  past’ 
and  strongly  advocated  a change  in  the 
name  of  the  Department  of  public  chari- 
ties ‘to  one  more  in  accord  with  the  spirit 


of  the  times.’  It  was  at  this  time  that 
Henry  Rood,  writer  in  the  New  York 
World,  admitted  that  ‘there  has  been  a 
decline  in  the  alcoholic  death  rate  in  New 
York  City  of  extraordinary  proportions,’ 
which  later  in  the  article  he  asserted 
amounted  to  ‘more  than  500  per  cent.’ 

“In  the  light  of  these  records  of  1920 
and  1921,  the  case  of  Dr.  Norris  falls 
down  completely,  except  as  a basis  for  de. 
manding  a return  to  the  prohibition 
standards  of  these  two  years.  This  the 
good  doctor  fails  utterly  to  do.  The  most 
he  has  been  able  to  show  is  that  the  en- 
larging us<*  of  what  he  terms  poisoned 
liquors,  due  to  organized  rebellion  against 
the  law,  has  succeeded  in  producing  a 
record  of  deaths  somewhat  comparable 
to  the  record  of  pre-prohibition  years, 
when  the  supposedly  ‘pure  liquors’  ruled 
the  market  under  all  the  restrictions  which 
legislative  ingenuity  could  devise. 

While  He  Guesses 

“Dr.  Norris  guesses  that  recent  deaths 
are  more  numerous  than  the  statistics  re- 
veal. Why  not  guess  that  this  is  equally 
true  of  the  pre-prohibition  period?  Here 
is  the  testimony  of  a medical  officer  con., 
nected  with  the  Coroner’s  office  of  a 
large  city; 

‘Prior  to  the  passage  of  the  Volstead 
Act,  it  was  political  suicide  for  an  office 
holder  in  any  way  to  show  the  evil  of 
drinking.  Now  the  deputy  coroner,  in  tak- 
ing evidence,  can  go  into  the  history  of 
alcoholism  without  fear  of  criticism.’ 

“Dr.  Norris  would  have  rendered  dis- 
tinct public  service  had  he  chosen  to  set 
forth  in  detail  the  real  cause  of  the  in- 
creased deaths  during  the  last  four  years. 
He  should  have  laid  this  mortality  at  the 
door  of  organized  lawlessness  and  willful 
rebellion.  When  opponents  of  prohibition 
were  beginning  to  recover  somewhat  from 
their  amazement  at  the  marvelous  ef- 
fect of  prohibition  as  shown  by  statistics 
and  every  survey  made  in  1920  and  1921, 
they  realized  that  if  they  did  not  make 
a determined  stand  against  it,  the  chance 
to  overthrow  prohibition  would  be  for- 
ever gone. 

“In  that  fact  was  born  the  organized 
rebellion  which  is  wholly  responsible  for 
present  conditions.  Early  efforts  brought 


meager  results.  The  repeal  of  the  Mul- 
lan-Gage  Act  in  1923  gave  the  wet  move- 
ment some  encouragement,  and  this  act 
has  contributed  no  small  part  to  that  mor. 
tality  increase  which  both  Dr.  Norris  and 
all  friends  of  prohibition  so  deeply  de- 
plore. Discouraged  in  the  Nation  as  a 
whole,  as  each  succeeding  congress  be- 
came drier  than  its  predecessor,  the 
sponsors  for  liquor  became  desperate, 
with  the  result  that  a determined  minority 
of  the  American  people  have  become  ob- 
sessed with  the  notion  that  the  quickest 
way  to  secure  the  repeal  of  prohibition  is 
to  violate  the  law  openly  and  with  im- 
punity. 

Place  Responsibility  Where  It  Belongs 

“No  one  questions  the  right  of  men  and 
women  to  work  for  the  repeal  or  modifi- 
cation of  the  law.  But  at  a time  when  it  is 
clear  that  their  attacks  upon  prohibition 
are  pouring  oil  on  the  flames  of  lawless- 
ness and  rebellion,  they  may  well  pause 
until  rebellion  is  suppressed.  Then,  if  in 
the  clear  light  of  reason  and  facts  the  peo- 
ple want  to  liberalize  their  fundamental 
law,  the  way  to  bring  it  about  by  orderly 
procedure  is  provided  in  the  Constitution 
itself.  To  legislate  at  the  behest  of  law- 
lessness, however,  is  a blow  at  orderly 
and  constitutional  government  and  does 
^ positive  violence  to  the  American  spirit. 

“Let  Dr.  Norris  join  the  public  and  the 
public  officials  in  making  war  on  the  boot- 
leggers, as  he  would  do  upon  the  source 
of  any  other  public  pest,  let  him  and  all 
others  insist  that  the  governor  and  our 
legislature  enact  the  legislation  necessary 
to  restore  the  conditions  of  1920  and 
1921.  Let’s  face  the  situation  as  it  is  and 
place  responsibility  where  it  belongs,  and 
the  poisoned  liquor  agents  will  cease  to  be 
a protected  class  and  we  will  find  a speedy 
remedy  for  the  fruits  of  organized  rebel- 
lion, 

“Dr.  Norris  and  the  public  ought  to 
see  that  it  is  the  madness  of  rebellion  that 
is  killing  our  people  and  that  we  have 
remedied  nothing  when  we  legalize  the 
acts  of  its  agencies.” 


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AMERICAN  ISSUE  PUBLISHING  COMPANY 
WESTERVILLE.  OHIO 


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